DVSA Appoints Former Network Rail Safety Director as New Chief Exec

Gareth Llewellyn has been appointed as the new Chief Executive of the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA).

Llewellyn brings substantial experience having held senior global roles with both National Grid plc and Anglo American plc and has led businesses through a number of mergers and acquisitions.

As Group Safety, Technical and Engineering Director for Network Rail, he led the drive to improve both culture and safety performance. He is currently one of the Department for Transport’s nominated non-executive directors on the board of the Harwich Haven Authority and has also held board roles at Biffa plc and the Renewable Fuels Agency.

Llewellyn will join DVSA on Monday 14 March 2016, before formally taking over from the acting Chief Executive Paul Satoor on Friday 1 April 2016. Satoor will remain as Deputy Chief Executive.

Llewellyn commented: “The services DVSA provides touch the lives of everyone in Great Britain, whether it be through enabling people to drive or ensuring vehicles are safe to take to the road. The professionalism of everyone at the DVSA will enable us to respond to the ever changing expectations of our customers, helping them travel safely every day.”

DVSA joined the Microlise Transport Conference speaker line up last year to introduce the organisation’s new approach to enforcement which aims to provide significant benefits by improving road safety through enhanced operator experience and ensuring compliance.

The session looked at the shift towards compliance rather than enforcement, explaining how traditional enforcement was costly, intrusive and ineffective given not all operators could be regularly reached.

During the presentation, Caroline Hicks of DVSA also explained the concept of next generation enforcement, where compliant operators were engaged far less by the DVSA, with exemplar operators gaining Earned Recognition, and compliant operators being enforced only remotely through access to performance data.

With compliance being high on the agenda for transport operators, the DVSA’s presentation was one of the best received by the 1,000+ attendees at Europe’s largest road transport conference last year.

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